voice smote upon Cairn's ears as
the most hated sound in nature--"you have followed me. Not content
with driving me from London, you would also render Cairo--my dear
Cairo--untenable for me."

Cairn clutched the bars but was silent.

"How wrong of you, Cairn!" the soft voice mocked. "This attention is
so harmful--to you. Do you know, Cairn, the Sudanese formed the
extraordinary opinion that I was an _efreet_, and this strange
reputation has followed me right down the Nile. Your father, my dear
friend, has studied these odd matters, and he would tell you that
there is no power, in Nature, higher than the human will. Actually,
Cairn, they have ascribed to me the direction of the _Khamsin_, and so
many worthy Egyptians have made up their minds that I travel with the
storm--or that the storm follows me--that something of the kind has
really come to pass! Or is it merely coincidence, Cairn? Who can say?"

Motionless, immobile, save for a slow smile, Antony Ferrara stood, and
Cairn kept his eyes upon the evil face, and with trembling hands
clutched the bars.

"It is certainly odd, is it not," resumed the taunting voice, "that
_Khamsin_, so violent, too, should thus descend upon the Cairene
season? I only arrived from the Fayum this evening, Cairn, and, do you
know, they have the pestilence there! I trust the hot wind does not
carry it to Cairo; there are so many distinguished European and
American visitors here. It would be a thousand pities!"

Cairn released his grip of the bars, raised his clenched fists above
his head, and in a voice and with a maniacal fury that were neither
his own, cursed the man who stood there mocking him. Then he reeled,
fell, and remembered no more.

* * * * *

"All right, old man--you'll do quite nicely now."

It was Sime speaking.

Cairn struggled upright ... and found himself in bed! Sime was seated
beside him.

"Don't talk!" said Sime, "you're in hospital! I'll do the talking; you
listen. I saw you bolt out of Shepheard's last night--shut up! I
followed, but lost you. We got up a search party, and with the aid of
the man who had driven you, ran you to earth in a dirty alley behind
the mosque of El-Azhar. Four kindly mendicants, who reside upon the
steps of the establishment, had been awakened by your blundering in
among them. They were holding you--yes, you were raving pretty badly.
You are a lucky man, Cairn. You were inoculated before you left home?"